Oh c'mon... give old fordy a break! He's still Indiana Jones- and to everyone saying The Crystal Skull was corny... have you seen the first three lately? They were ALL corny, but that was a huge part of the charm.

MasterYong

As much as i like the previous 3 Indiana Jones movies Crystal Skull was good till the ending which i won't spoil =)

radkon1

Ah, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Good times. I always went with the "team up with the chick" path.

...she was in The Infernal Machine too? Huh, wonder if my dad still has the game, I never played that one...

xyzzyka

Oh c'mon Owen don't be so cynical about Crystal Skull. I like the AVGN review the best where he said in general "Indian Jones Movies are at heart a highly glorified B-Movie of the 1930s." And it is true and the only fact is that the "1st and 3rd were more serious and put to a greater historical backdrop" that elevated the story beyond B Movie status. The Second and this one are the most chided of the group because they remain funny and not too plot driven much like the original premise. Yes I like the first and third much more than the rest but it was hardly a "joyless obligation."

Either way an interesting read indeed. I personally like the Snes Indian Jones' Greates Adventures. That game was awesome on almost every level as far as Indian Jones games go. If the new two Jones games are as good as this one I might pick it up....Of course after I have beaten MGS 4 for about the fifth time ;)!

Weasel3689

Movie's got 77% positive reviews on rottentomatoes... how is that "everyone but Ebert gives it butt-hurt" exactly?

I liked it. Definitely silly, but good.

Yonderboy

@xyzzyka: Wonderful game. I still remember the hand-to-hand combat music coming out of my PC speaker - tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-TU-DUUUUU-tu-tu-tu. So exciting, ha-ha!
And how I stared in awe at the first water chute: the water trickling down looked amazing. The mere fact that it was moving, I think, made it impressive.

Antiterra

@MasterYong:

Exactly ... loved it ... if you had the mind set to watch it ... and read a lot of books on ancient societies, it would make sense ... was cool and had the right amount of outlandish things that made Indy... Indy!

EnigmaNemesis

The only thing I had somewhat of a problem to digest with my suspension of disbelief was when Indy said Pancho Villa's men speaked Quechua. That was just... silly.

BigBooBuddy

The Fate of Atlantis isometric ACTION GAME is MISSING !!!

DS_Nadine

The latest Indy movie was just right. With the right amount of corny.

Ashurahori

@MasterYong: All Indiana jones movies have ot be corny, they were inspired by B series of the 1950s-60s. As stated above, I liked the movie, tons.

Shiryu

The ending gave me chills (in a good way). But the film is coated with an unrelenting desire to cover a lot of ground trying to satisfy everyone.

MOP88

@mike566: Err, should have specified for the Lego game.

mike566

I really like Factor 5's Indiana Jones trilogy for the SNES. I've played "the Last Crusade" to death on the Spectrum and later Amiga 500. I have to admit, its part of my childhood.

Everyone critizices the new movie, I went to see and was very happy with it. It's just harder to take all that in because...well, because were not 10 any more and we perceive such things differently now.

Lego Indiana Jones is still in my "to buy" list. :)

Shiryu

Should be out Tuesday for America :D

mike566

Reading the article makes me want to go back and play the Lucasarts adventure games, those were awesome back in the day.

Strangelove

It was good but the ending was a bit funky

kickassy

The movie is great but a lot of people complain without really thinking of what the first 3 were.

they were cheesy, predictible and for the most part totally unbelievable with over the top action sequences.

The last one wasn't the best, but it certainly wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be.

I Personally loved it.

interstate78

The new one just took a whole different direction. It would've been awesome if the end scene didn't turn out to be set where it did, and instead was in some ancient thing with the same idea behind it as that WAS.

Hard to explain this without giving away the ending.

Mustakrakish

I liked the Crystal Skull, it was silly fun and a really enjoyable trip to the cinema... and since when is 78% percent considered all round bad reviews... part from raiders the other two got % in the 80's

Anyway... when can we get more details on the new (non-lego) game?? I remember the ps3 showcasing that aaages ago - remember indy fighting someone on a cable car to show off animation/physics or summat

scuba2steve

@GordieHoweHatTrick:

But Willie came alongside Short Round.

I'd say we broke even on that one.

Komrade_Kayce

Ifind Ebert's review is spot on. Sure the movie has it's corny moments, but the movie turned into a 50's sci-fi B-Movie, which is what Speilberg was going for. It's not trying to be the next Casablanca, it's just a wonderful popcorn movie to keep you entertained for two hours. It's like comparing it to a few movies in the James Bond series I'm sure the people who hated the movie will buy it on DVD when it's released :-p. The movie will be better with age (not mileage) and will join the other three as classics. Thank God Crystal Skull didn't have somebody as annoying as Willie in it :)

Anyways, I remember playing the Last Crusade Adventure game at a buddies place and have too much fun trying to get past the trials. Always got sliced and diced from the huge blades, so much fun.

GordieHoweHatTrick

Like everyone else has said, Fate of Atlantis.

Im so proud of all these commenters who said this. You guys bring childhood tears of joy to my eyes.

The Talkie one had WONDERFUL voice acting and sound. The Nazi's were suitably hilarious/menacing, Jones was pitch perfect and I replayed the end scene a million times just to keep telling the good doktor '100 beads!'.

Komrade_Kayce

@BigBooBuddy: But Indy did ride with Pancho Villa during his Spring Break Adventure in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Don't tell me you aren't fully versed in all of Indy's young adventures ;)

Steffs

Fate of Atlantis was the best. Sucker punching a guy and watching his hat drift down to the ground lazily was the best.

Huckleberry

Crystal Skull was fun. Better than Temple of Doom, and definitely stands up well. Unfortunately, David Koepp is the hackiest hack that ever hacked. Well, his stuff is usually about 65% good. I don't know why Spielberg keeps working with him.

While I found the Star Wars prequels enjoyable, George Lucas should have had someone else direct (and an actual screenwriter work on the screenplays too, for that matter).

chinesedentist

Slight Spoilers ahead:

Yeah, when I went to see The Crystal Skull I definitely enjoyed it, even when there were moments that felt like I was watching a cartoon (especially during a certain refrigerator scene), and this one certainly was the most eyebrow raising of the series (Man, that film went to an area I never expected a Jones film to go). Still, it was a damn good film. It at least didn't come with the Phantom Menace level of disappointment. Good to see Harrison Ford still doing his thing at 65.

I might check out Lego Indiana Jones, seeing as how I'm still hyped up from the film.

KeroseneClimax

hmmm, reminds me. I have that Fate of Atlantis Talkie cdrom sitting on a shelf. Maybe it's time to play it one more time. Although, I have no idea if I'll get it to run a vista.

Bargo

"We walk from here!"

Does Not Equal

Crystal Skull was not that bad. Better than Temple of Doom, IMO. And it got some mixed reviews, but it wasn't panned.

Honestly Owen, you're an idiot for acting like it was a generally hated piece of shit.

Jawajoey

You know Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) did a history on Indiana Jones games as well.

Dr.Chocobo

I really liked the new films. It was silly fun, which is all Indiana Jones has ever been: cheesy, action packed, ridiculous and lots of fun. It must be said that the new one was a step up in the excessive direction (especially the monkey swinging sequence and the gophers, which were really, really awful decisions) but was the whole plot anymore ridiculous than a God box that melts peoples faces? In fact, its almost more credible! But a very fun film, which has recieved some unfair backlash due to some flaws which only moderately damage the film.

But I really must get around to playing an Indiana Jones game - never have, except for a demo of some PC one a while ago. Lego one looks like loads of fun, but like the Star Wars Lego games probably more worthy of a weekend rental rather than a full-on purchase. Really looking foward to a next-gen Indy game in the mould of Tomb Raider though - lots of possibilities there!

johnny_ultimate

(spoiler alert)
The movie was good when taken into context, I just hope we don't see a "Shia LaBeouf in Mutt Jones" movie anytime soon. After reading about the past games I'm surprised those themes were not used for story ideas in the movie. I think an 'Atlantis' theme would have been much more enjoyable then 'Jones and the chase for ET '.

Can't wait for the Lego game. The star wars games were extremely addictive.

TKWarrior

@Komrade_Kayce: Short Round > Every other character in Cinema history.

CatPope

Loved Crystal Skull. Can't wait for the next one. I have fond memories of the Temple of Doom arcade game. Minecarts are always awesome.

blizzardjesus

I remember playing the ever loving shit out of the original Atari 2600 game, even though at the time I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing. I also remember playing quite a bit of the Last Crusade: The Action Game on my Commodore 64. I'm not sure if I ever got past the zepplin level on my own, but I remember back-seat playing with my brother when he beat the game.

PissedPS3Fan

They should have made a movie out of Fate of Atlantis back in the day
It was so awesome

Arkanius

What? Indiana Jones games? Who made these games? Surely not LucasArts, all they do is pump out Star Wars games and keep poor Guybrush Threepwood locked away in the LucasVault.

Klaymen

I'm totally gonna play Fate of Atlantis again. Thanks Kotaku!

I really liked Crystal Skull. It was no Last Crusade, but that movie is so awesome, I never expected the new one to be as good as it. Sean Connery FTW.

CaptLtrl

If you haven't seen Crystal Skull. Save your money, it's the crappiest of indaina jones. I don't see what the hype was. They stole half the oontent from Uncharted.

karateka

I also liked KotCS. It's a very fun movie much in the same vein as the first three. I'm pretty sure a lot of the hate is just pent up from nearly two decades of expectations that could never realistically be fulfilled.

Lezard

I didn't have a problem with the new flick. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes the CGI animals were awful, but I don't think the plot or its ending were any stupider than "Last Crusade." (I rank them with Raiders 1st, Temple 2nd, and LC & KOTCS tied for 3rd.) KOTCS is a fun summer popcorn flick, and at least I didn't walk away with my enjoyment of Indy irreversibly tarnished as I did with Star Wars after the prequels.

Good article though. Certainly brings back a lot of fun, if frustrating gameplay-wise, times.

kidjesus

i really liked skull too. i also really dug the fridge scene. i was dreading it when i heard about it... but i dunno. somehow i think they pulled it off. only thing that bugged me was the three rounds of prarie dogs in such a short amount of time and shia monkeys. the ending wasnt spectacular but i still enjoyed it.

T16skyhopp

Owen, I certainly agree with you - Crystal Skull had "Bad George" handprints all over it. While I tried my best to enjoy the movie for what it was, there were parts of it that truly befuddled the mind. The vines, the refrigerator, waterfalls - it got to be too much suspension of disbelief.

It made me very sad - and while I did enjoy the movie to a degree, it made me long for the old days.

Spoony Bard

I think the problem is probably the Macguffin in the new movie. First three had religious artifacts from Judaism, Hindu, and Christianity, respectively, while the fourth 'suddenly' went towards a science fiction artifact, which bothered people. Doing artifacts like this from these three religions again would just be retreading, while using artifacts from the other two big religions (Buddhism and Islam) wouldn't exactly be the best idea. It was either the crystal skull or ... well, how many other non-religious mystical artifacts can you name that weren't done already in an Indy movie/game/episode?

That and some people have it in for Shia LeBeouf, for some reason.

There is one point I will concede to, though: they wasted John Hurt. They had him and they wasted him.

Anyway, back on topic, I owned Fate of Atlantis, Infernal Machine, and Emperor's Tomb, which is why I'm not worried about Silent Hill V (like they pointed out in the article). I liked all of those, and I'm hoping both the Lego and the Euphoria-powered games will be just as good.

@Komrade_Kayce: Short Round isn't enough to offset that woman. [alcedechocolate.deviantart.com]

Drake Lake

@karateka: ...k.

Drake Lake

@karateka: No way, it was a very fun watch. Cheesy, but that's expected going into Indiana Jones. If you're expecting a serious movie you shouldn't be seeing it in the first place.

mike566

Oh shit, guys!

[www.mobygames.com]

Drake Lake

Crystal Skull was awful.

There were no traps. Really can't possibly stress this one hard enough, by the way. Like when they're in the tomb Indy says to Mudd "Don't touch anything!" and I was thinking "oh excellent someone's gonna step on a false block and shit is going to go down." Nope. What the fuck. Aren't the amazing and over-the-top booby traps what everyone remembers from the first three, that made the series so iconic?

There were no puzzles.

There was no plot exposition.

By the time they "revealed" that Mudd was Indy's son, the interplay between the two characters (and almost all of Mudd's dialog) was over.

The characters had no character. There were few to no witty one-liners.

What the Russians were searching for and why was never fully explained, so there was nothing to fear. ("We're going to use this abstract, intangible, undefined power to DO STUFF! Bwahahahahahaha...")

The ending (of the "plot") was a massive cop-out.

Ox didn't drop the crustal skull going over three fucking waterfalls, but he dropped it falling down that tiny pit when they activated the obilisk.

"OH THERE WAS NO GOLD IN THE CITY BECAUSE GOLD ACTUALLY MEANT KNOWLEDGE." Retarded. Not to mention that they didn't gain any knowledge by going there!

The magic secret city that no one had found in thousands of years was being guarded at every step by well-armed groups of natives.

The story seems like an Indiana Jones fanfic written by someone in high school rather than an actual movie. And the kid writing it can't come up with any slick, clever archeology stuff to buffer the film with, so he replaced it with a fourty-five minute chase scene. After they get to the jungle, the story is basically over.

The movie peaked at the greaser fight.

Basically they resurrected a classic, lucrative franchise that I have a lot of respect for, to jump the fucking shark with goddamn aliens.

What an awful fucking movie.

DXY! : Ask me about Bemani!

Substitute ending for the movie: Indy wakes up in the refrigerator.

Rhys

And whoops for posting that last thing twice. Damn lack of an edit button! =)

Szin

Sorry, but I thought Crystal Skull was awful. And mind you, my problem with the movie has nothing to do with the ending of it either, although it doesn't help matters. The script was awful, so many scenes serve NO purpose to the main storyline, and the movie flowed terribly because of said certain scenes serving no purpose. If you go back and look at the first 3 Indy movies, they flow together very well. Even Temple Of Doom had good pacing to it. Sure, Kate can't act, but we got Short Round to tell her to call him DOCTAH JONES!

I don't see why people simply complain about the spoiler-ish ending. You can clearly see from the beginning of the film, what Lucas has planned for the end. The man should not be allowed to put pen to paper. Lucas has decent ideas, but he cannot write for shit.

Keep in mind too, I like cheesy movies and bad movies. I've watched them all my life, with or without MST3K. But overall, as an Indy fan, I was sorely disappointed. I could fully go into the reasons why, but it'd just be a massive spoiler fest.

I could fully go into why I don't like the movie, but I would put in way too many spoilers.

Szin

The latter two star wars prequels > Indiana Jones ;)

David Whitney

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is basically a giant love letter to Spielberg and Lucas' Baby Boomer generation...

[iskew.livejournal.com]

iskew

I like Indiana Jones, that's why I went to see crystal skull, but after seeing it, I recommend a rental when released. Yeah you would expect cheesiness and special effects to not be as great if this was made 10 years ago, but it should grow with the times and I don't think it has. The monkey scene is just teribble I think. It's like they stuck it in there so it can be made into a video game or something. I mean...a nuclear blast that destroys everything, but a refrigerator survive...come on. Harrison ford is just too old, and I think they stole half the scenes from Uncharted. i couldn't stop thinking how similar it looked. And the alien artifacts...it should have been another movie, not an indiana jones. I tought it was OK,...expected soemthing more but not quite met. I think that's how people would feel if they go see it.

karateka

@Szin: Now, I'm not contesting your opinion, but there are a lot of scenes in Raiders that served no purpose in the main plot. The "I Love You" classroom gag, drinking game, swordsman getting shot, the fight on the airplane, etc., but maybe that's just what I think. Raiders is still a great movie, though.

I enjoyed Crystal Skull. I read the reviews, saw the bitchfest on iMDB, knew the spoiler ending beforehand, but I went in and got rid of all expectations. Maybe it's because I haven't watched the other Indiana Jones movies in months, but I saw it as a standalone movie, and I was pleased - yes, fridge and all.

Ninja-Z

The NES ones were awful, just gawdawful. I do have fond memories of the N64 one though... Hm. Emulators? I think I'll pass on this one!

2NinjasTapedTogether

I actually liked the 2600 game. It was the first game I ever beat at the ripe old age of 8.

Pornosaur

Fate of Atlantis rocked my socks... still have the CD for DOS - I wanna play it again.

TheCakeIsALie

The new Indy was awesome. Not sure why it has such a bad reputation. It has 77% good reviews, which is about the same as ROTS. I don't really understand the comment that it got reviewed badly by everyone but Ebert.

zegota

I had the Last Crusade on the Amiga500 back when I was young. Game was annoyingly hard with bad platform design going everywhere. Would've tossed it after 10 minutes if I played it now, but back then it was like... the challenge kept me going.

Ah to be young and ignorant.

belo

LEGO Indiana Jones (or for that matter the new one with the Emotion engine) could come packaged with Jessica Alba offering me a blowjob during the installation and I'd STILL have to at least flip a coin to see if it was better or worse than Fate of Atlantis. Damn that game was great.

thecactusman17

@zegota:
NEEEEERDS. That's why.

So the grand total is 14 Indy games, yes?

Drake Lake

Crystal Skull was awesome, and was just as clever as Raiders of the Ark and Last Crusade (waaaaay better than Temple of Doom of course), though I have no great nostalgia for the films as I've only seen them relatively recently. I thought the ending was just fine and kept with the kind of material that would've appeared in pulp novels of the period, and I guess I didn't care that they didn't do much with John Hurt because I'm not a fan. But in general, I thought the cast and the script were excellent.

On topic, I'm excited for Lego Indiana Jones, but I haven't played anything on the list.

Mikintosh

Crystal Skull was good UNTIL that 'vine scene'... and everything went downhill from there.

rhugghed

Mr. Good is right.

NickRumas

@Bargo: Try googling scummvm. I'm playing fate of atlantis right now on vista with no probs :)

Gunloc

There are only three games on that list that I care about at this point. The Desktop Adventures (I still wants me a copy), LEGO Indiana Jones, and LEGO Indiana Jones (what? I've got a PC and a DS, so...). And they goofed on something else as well. They cite SCUMM as the engine used for all Lucasarts point-and-click adventures, when it got replaced by GrimE for Grim Fandango.

@Steffs:
That's not the part that he objects to. It's the idea that Mexican Pancho Villa, and his Mexican revolutionaries, in Mexico, would be speaking Quechua, a language that's not natively spoken north of the southern border of Columbia, instead of Spanish, the language that dominated Mexican life by that time. I own all three volumes of YIJ, and I kinda had a WTF moment when he said that in KotCS.

@Drake Lake:
I don't think there would have been any problem with doing something based on Buddhism, but yeah, Islam is pretty much right out. Dead religions would have been fair game, too, like Greco-Roman, Egyptian, or Norse mythology.

@DXY!:
They did explain the purpose of finding the crystal skull, actually. We just saw less of it than we did with any of the previous three movies. The Ark we know bestowed the knowledge of God...but at a pretty steep price. The Grail obviously prolongs life and heals mortal wounds. The Sankara stones made the climate nice and happy for the true owners, but I don't remember finding out exactly why Mola Ram wanted them. The crystal skull, on the other hand, had the power to turn peoples' minds to jelly, and the Russians planned to use that mind-controlling power to propagandize their socialist mindset onto the American public.

Purple Dave

My old email was IndyJonesIM, the IM standing for Infernal Machine. That game was awsome. I spent more time on one area in that game then any other. I spent 2 hours running around a beach just to find out the undetonated torpedo i swam next to an hour and a half ago had an action indicator i missed. those were the days before casual gaming. when a man had to spend three hours puzzle solving before he even picked up a thompsan.

jfuzz

Loved Indi 4 :)
But I went to see the movie with my expectations lowered. I wasn't expecting to see Last Crusade but something more like Temple of doom.

And I am happy. It was fun, it was silly, it was cool.

Could there be improvements? Yes! But I for one am very happy with the return of Dr. Jones.

Thriceborn

@DXY!: Dude, the russian chick explained fully why they wanted the skull's secrets. They wanted the psycho powers of persuasion in order to command opposing armies, etc. were you sleeping or what.

The movie was ok. I enjoyed it. I do agree that there are more plot holes per square inch that in the previous Indy movies, though.

Mokona

I love the old LucasArts adventures, but never had Fate of Atlantis.

I think I will track down FATE along with Infernal Machine and Emperor's Tomb just for kicks.

I would think INDY would make a more interesting LEGO game than STAR WARS for me, but after being bored to death mashing buttons on the SW games, Indy is of no interest to me :(

Rondogg

@DXY!: To add to list list of junk that made no sense/furthered nothing.. the pointless CGI animals.

I really hate how Lucas has to put computer generated stuff in everywhere. Just because you can, usually means you shouldn't!

I agree with the lack of puzzles and traps. Didn't realize till you said it that those were missing so much.

sorolla

I had that 2600 game! Ooh, those snakes were bastards. Good times, indeed.

Evil Tortie's Mom

Love Fate of Atlantis. Stil have the it somewhere. Leaving Sophia behind in Atlantis and the priceless ending. Ace.

EddieBlue

I used to love the Indiana Jones movie, but after seeing this one, i felt as if it faild to live up o expectations. I agree with some of the other comments that have ben left on here...HARISSON Ford is TOO OLD! I mean i didn't completely hate the movie but i was highly dissappointed....!

historymakin

i really liked the the new movie, the only thing I thought was really corny was him hiding in the fridge to save himself from the nuke, COME ON!!!!!!! Although him standing there looking at the mushroom cloud was REALLY COOL, i want that as a wallpaper for my PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

freespeech